Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies and Theory Journals
Please share your experiences working with these journals! Feel free to add other journals to the list. Try to stick with this format: each journal should be separated by dashes, and responses under each journal should each have their own bullet. Back to Literary Studies Journals ---- ''Arthuriana'' * ---- ''boundary 2 *For a time this was an academic journal but it is now a social club. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. The editor Bove was once worth reading and dealing with but alas, in the footsteps of Harold Bloom and Stanley Fish, his principal concern is now self-aggrandizement. Boundary 2 is his social club's newsletter. *ditto. also, before it went no-unsolicited, i submitted a piece there and got the most awful, demeaning, unsubstantiated rejection "feedback" (basically a single paragraph, riddled with typos and a variety of other errors) that i've ever received. piece ended up being accepted elsewhere, at a better publication, and while this experience really did shake my confidence (i was a grad student at the time) i was ultimately very glad i didn't publish at a place that so quickly thereafter became officially a clique publication. ---- ''CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture * ---- ''College Literature'' *Historically as much concerned with pedagogy as critical and theoretical approaches, now looking for more work on the latter. *Could anyone speak to the reputation of this journal? Is it not well known in my non-English field, but seems to be doing good work. ---- ''Comparative Literature'' *Moved fairly quickly. Two anonymous reviews within 4 four months. From time of acceptance to actual time of publication, however, was 1 1/2 years because of a back log of accepted articles. *also moved quickly for me. 2 anonymous reviews within 2 months; one reviewer positive the other hostile (rejection, 2011) *Fairly quick review process (~4 months) after inquiring with editor. Both articles I've submitted have been rejected, which is nothing unusual, but the reports have been frustratingly unhelpful. The problem seems to be that reviewers are selected based on national specialization and not methodology. **as poster #2 above I appreciate and agree with the third set of comments. my article dealth with a specific national literature, but I preferred to publish in a comparativist journal. It was also true in my case that neither reviewer seemed to have substantively comparativist/methodological interests. Indeed, one reviewer was hostile to the very idea that I regarded the tradition I was dealing with as having "literary theory" at all! an odd choice as a reviewer for ACLA's journal of record. **Again, the review process was quick (3 months). While ultimately the essay was rejected, I received helpful reports. *Slow, rather agonizing, but ultimately successful experience. No info at five months, but accepted a month later. Editor is a delight: clear, quick, encouraging responses to email inquiries. They can take a long while to find readers who specialize in the languages discussed in your essay. That snarls the process. One reader report was thorough and generally excellent (if a bit querulous and sometimes mean-spirited); the other reader report flaky and unhelpful. Apparently a long backlog once accepted. *The experience was wonderful for me. Five months is not at all a long time these days, I have dealt with journals that take nearly two years. The backlog is long, but it helps to finish corrections quickly, as some people in the backlog take forever to deliver their final version. That moved me up a couple issues. The editors are the most professional people I have dealt with. ---- ''Comparative Literature Studies'' *My submission took over 9 months; it was an R&R; resubmitted in 5/2012 and still waiting for word as of 9/2012--so it seems like an extraordinary slow turn around. Can anyone else report on their experience? ---- ''Contemporary Literature *I had perhaps an unusual experience: from pitch to print, 9 months. Perhaps good timing? Colleagues have said Con Lit is slow, but tat wasn't my experience. Good editorial comments, but prepare to be copy edited into oblivion. Still, to have a piece here is worth it. *Very conservative. ---- ''Critical Inquiry *Highly desirable publication venue, like PMLA for the theory crowd. Given the high number of submissions I imagine they receive, a quick turnaround time (4 months), but in my case the rejection came without any reviewer feedback, and the editor's note simply stated that they enjoyed my article but it didn't fill a current need. Still, worth a shot when it's only 4 months out of your publishing life! *I hear that this one's a closed shop (invitation only), and so I've never even bothered submitting. *Not a closed shop at all. I submitted as I was finishing grad school, with no invitation and no special superstar accomplishments, and everyone told me that they'd just reject me out of hand-- but I got in, and they have actually been the most professional group of people I've ever worked with, journal-wise. If it seems like a closed shop, it's probably only because people always say it's a closed shop and so people are afraid to submit-- which of course does indeed make it, by default, a closed shop. If you have good work, send it in-- I truly believe based on my experience with them that they will give you a sincere and careful read, even though ultimately they have so little space that you might not make it in. ---- ''Criticism'' *Recent reputation is an early career-type journal. Not terribly difficult to publish here. A little disorganized and slow on turnaround (6 mos. for me). Didn't ask for any revisions even though I know my article needed them. ---- ''Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction'' *They would not consider an article I submitted b/c it was not formatted in MLA style; rather than waste time on reformatting I chose to submit elsewhere, and it was quickly accepted. So don't submit any non-MLA articles here. *3 months for a rejection, only one reviewer commented. Their comments were helpful and basically right, but sounded a lot more like a revise/resubmit than a rejection. That seemed to be the editor's decision. *I had a great experience with them, which was much appreciated because my tenure clock was ticking like Marisa Tomei's biological clock in My Cousin Vinny. They got back to me on the article within six weeks, had extremely helpful review comments, and led me through two rounds of revision and resubmission. This directly led to my being able to get tenure. I'm still waiting for the article to come out, but I'm always happy to have something accepted because they wanted it, not because they needed it. *Three months from submission to rejection. Comments also sounded more like revise and resubmit though that option wa not offered. One reviewer and the editor agreed. The comments were sparse, though. ---- ''Culture, Theory, and Critique'' *submitted article 3/2011; two readers reports (only one really detailed) three months later; published within 12 months of submission. I would recommend publishing here. ---- ''Cultural Critique'' *A very pleasant publishing experience overall, though not the quickest: 15 months from submission to initial reader reports; 3 months for acceptance of revisions; ~1 year from acceptance to publication. Did allow me to revise extensively after mixed initial reviews. Reviews (including the one that initially recommended rejection) were extremely thorough and constructive; that negative review might be the most thorough going over my work has ever received. ---- ''Cultural Studies'' *Awful. Readers reports took nine months. I had questions about one of the reports, which referred to an "attachment" that wasn't forwarded to me, and wrote at least five times over a several month period for clarification. After the fifth email, got a response that they'd look into it and get back to me. Then nothing. The period for revisions expired, and I pulled my article. ---- ''Diacritics'' *Is this still a live journal? Looks like last issue was published in 2009? *It's still live. The most recent issue came out a couple months ago. They're just backdating it. *Everyone I know who's published here has had TERRIBLE experiences, i.e., 2-3yrs from submission to acceptance, then another 1-2yrs. to publication. ---- ''Eighteenth-Century Fiction'' * ---- ''Eighteenth-Century Studies'' * ---- ''Exemplaria'' *Exemplaria an academic journal dedicated to medieval and Renaissance studies from Maney Publishing has received the 2011 Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) ---- ''Genre'' *R&R within 3 months; article accepted for publication around1 month after resubmission. Readers' reports were fair and thorough. Good experience here. ---- ''Historical Materialism'' *Good journal, but very slow moving. ---- ''Huntington Library Quarterly'' *Really impressive experience here. Standard-to-fast turnaround (2-4 months), very full readers' reports and editors notes. This journal took a good article and made it a really good article, and I learned a lot in the process. More rigorous and helpful than its more prestigious peers, in my experience. *Quick feedback- I received a response in a little over a month. The reports were thorough, although one sounded more like R&R. Both reviewers were very positive and one gave very good feedback. ---- ''Inter-Asia Cultural Studies'' *Received a very prompt, but very snarky and grouchy reader's report. The reader clearly did not like one of the writers I was drawing on. It was clear that the reader did not read the whole essay and didn't seem very familiar or sympathetic to literary approaches to cultural studies. I shared the comments with some senior faculty in my department and they were all shocked at the lack of professionalism in the reader's report. The essay I submitted is now coming out with another journal (which had three reviewers go over it versus IACS' one reviewer. I suspect it was one of the co-editors of the journal). I have heard that others have had more positive experiences with this journal, however. ---- ''JMEMS: Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies'' *Before submitting, note somewhat odd formatting request: "All material in the document, including extracts and endnotes, should be formatted in a 12-point Courier (typewriter style) font (not in a proportional font like Times Roman)." ---- ''JML: Journal of Modern Literature'' *Moved very quickly. Even with 2 R&Rs, time from submission to acceptance was only 4 months. Very organized, thorough, and friendly editors and board. X2 *My submission never made it past the managing editor b/c I think it is unethical to require writers to follow the journal's citational style merely to have their work considered for publication. Am I the only one with this position? How I wish the MLA style would vanish from the earth and cede to the far superior Chicago style, or at least that authors would be free to choose! ---- ''Journal of Narrative Theory'' *Submitted article in August 2011, submission confirmed Sep. 2011, still waiting to hear anything in May '12. ---- ''Medium Aevum'' *Absolute disaster. Been waiting to hear for more than eight months now and the editor doesn't even respond to queries. Avoid! ---- ''MFS: Modern Fiction Studies'' *Submitted an article in November 2011 and was rejected in January 2012. The editor copy and pasted one reader review that was particularly nasty. Just beyond rude. So rude that I was completely stunned and kind of wish I could plaster it all over the internet. The reviewer clearly spent a lot of time crafting the perfect metaphors, similes, and imagery to convey what I can only interpret as hatred for what s/he is doing. (The irony is that, in a dependent clause, the reviewer admits that I had actually proven my thesis and that it was an important argument to make!) Maybe they think it's funny? Except it's not. I've received very nice rejections before from PMLA, for example, so don't discount me as particularly sensitive. *Special issue rejection took 5 months, no comments or review given. A colleague got a swift desk rejection, 1 month, no comments. *It took them four months to tell me they had decided not to send it out for review. Previously, I submitted for a special issue and was rejected without any comments. When the special isse came out, every contributor was tenured or full, at competitive institutions. It is not a good venue for an emerging scholar. *I haven't published in MFS myself, but I saw a recent special issue with lots of junior faculty contributors, so the poster above may have had a fluke experience with it. ---- ''MLN: Modern Language Notes'' * ---- ''MLQ: A Journal of Literary History'' *Typically very quick turnaround (especially for rejections) with full editor's report, suggestions etc. *Agree with above. I've never had such thorough and detailed feedback for a desk rejection. Quite helpful, and left a very positive impression of the journal and its editor. *Agree. Insanely fast turnaround and even rejections almost always come with an incredibly detailed response. Also, if you get accepted, the editing process is more thorough and helpful than you'll get almost anywhere else. One of the good 'uns. *There was a fantastic response time for my article. Although the editor heaped praise upon the piece (very appreciated!), he graciously rejected it because the focus was a little too narrow (too author-focusedrather than focused on genre). It was, nevertheless, a fantastic rejection insofar as his editorial suggestions were both helpful and educational. ---- ''Modern Language Review'' * ---- ''Modern Philology'' *Probably my best publishing experience. Fast turnaround (2-3 months) with brilliant and helpful suggestions. *If you submit here, be sure to carefully follow the formatting instructions under "info for authors"; otherwise you will be asked to resubmit. *Got a quick turnaround on the decision, and great reader's reports. Waited a long time between decision and publication. Also got excellent copyediting. *Relatively quick return (3 months?) with incredibly thorough, helpful, and kind reader's reports (three) asking for an r&r. Accepted almost immediately upon resubmission. Still forthcoming, but so far it's been a great experience. *Another positive experience here: got a response in a little over two months (conditional accept), with a detailed reader's report. Finalized acceptance came 3 weeks after submitting revisions. But note the long wait time between decision and publication: could be 2.5 - 3 years before your article appears in print. ---- ''Mosaic'' *Overall, a very good experience and a very organized submission process. Three months after the initial submission, I received a conditional acceptance (along with two very helpful reader reports), and three months after sending the revised essay, I received the editor's final changes and a contract. *submitted 3/2010; received conditional acceptance w/ 2 good reader reports 12/2010; good experience with production editor; a bit slow to publication, but overall good experience *2011: submitted to call for special issue; r&r with four very detailed reports; conditional acceptance with equally detailed reports by the same four readers. On the slow side (3-6 months between submissions), but very meticulous. ---- ''Narrative'' *Really good experience. 3-4 months for initial feedback from two reviewers after submission. Both were very thorough and helpful. The much improved essay was published about one year after submission. ---- ''Neophilologus'' * ---- ''New Literary History'' *NOTE: the following comments were moved from the English Literature Journals page: **Submitted an article in September 2011. Received a rejection in December with no explanation beyond "not suitable." **also received rejection from editor in roughly two months, including a few sentences concerning why the editorial board rejected it. ---- ''Nineteenth-Century Literature'' *I submitted and got a revise-and-resubmit response from the editor about a month later. Then it went to a reader; I got the reader's report about seven months later, with another revise and resubmit; about seven months later the article was accepted. It was published about six months after that. So, almost two years from submission until the piece actually appeared--but the feedback from both editor and reader was generous and extremely helpful. *Submitted in December 2011; still waiting in April 2012. I contacted them (to ask a policy question, not to check the status of the submission) in mid-March and the editorial assistant volunteered they're still waiting on one reader. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but I hope to hear soon. I really wish they'd begin accepting electronic submissions. ---- ''Novel: A Forum on Fiction'' *Moved quickly: from submission to acceptance took 3 months. *Disappointed with my experience here. Two submissions; in both cases, the rejections--justified--were prompt but the reader reports were contradictory, hasty, and frankly unkind. Had the impression that reader/ editor hadn't read the piece very carefully--would have prefered a simple "No" to the feedback I got. *Dissapointed here as well. After a long wait, I received a terrific, thorough response from the single external reader. After revising and resubmitting (and another very long wait), I received a rather nasty letter from the editor that completely contradicted the reader's report. Among other things, she made it clear that the author I chose to write about was not someone the journal would ever take seriously (you'd think this would have been communicated to me before asking me to resubmit....). Only thing that didn't make it a complete waste of time was that, thanks to the helpful reader's report, the revised article was quickly accepted elsewhere (with no R&R this time around). response to the commentor below: looks like my experience isn't unique. In my case, however, the managing editor was at least willing to sign the snarky letter herself. *I feel for the poor graduate student who must sign her name to the incredibly snarky/bitchy comments that the managing editor writes on her rejection letters. I'm sorry if my article ended up being critical of a book you came out with ten years ago but there is neither need to be so incredibly catty, nor to use a proxy for your cattiness. ---- ''October'' *Is thus journal actually reading submissions? Something I sent a year ago was entirely ignored and published elsewhere. ---- October rarely publishes work not connected directly to members of its editorial board. ''Orbis Litterarum'' * ---- ''Philological Quarterly'' *Had an excellent experience with them. From submission to acceptance was less than a month; acceptance also came with detailed and insightful readers' reports that improved the essay considerably. *Yes, agreed. Very helpful and generous readers reports on submission and then again on revision. Essay was much improved. *Fantastic as well. 3 weeks to get a very thorough review on an article outside their usual field. Incredibly helpful and communicative editor. ---- ''Philosophy and Literature'' *submitted an article 3/2010; received R&R 8/2010; I submitted a revised version 12/2010 and received no response; I wrote again later (approx. 2/2011) to inquire and was told that the article had been accepted w/o any info re pub date; wrote again 3/2012 to inquire and editor is not responding to my emails. Can anyone advise how I should proceed? I have always respected this journal, but have found the current set of editors to be singularly unhelpful, and would not publish here again. Also, no evident peer-review process. **update from submitter above (10/2012). more than 2 and 1/2 years (!!) following my original submission, I have finally received a contract to sign and been informed the article will appear in the next issue. Publishing here has been the worst experience I have ever had; countless queries have gone unanswered and there was no peer-review process at all. I am aware that the founder of the journal died during the time that my article languished. My guess is that the current editor doesn't care about the journal and is just trying to bring it to a close. I continue to believe the journal fills an important niche in literary studies, but there is no longer any editorial infrastructure. My guess is that the journal will disappear in the next couple of years. I would very strongly advise against submitting or publishing here. *Submitted an article and got a quick rejection after a month. The rejection was a form letter that stated there were no readers' reports due to having a small editorial team, which is weird since the editorial team wouldn't be generating the reports -- the readers would. Maybe they don't actually have a peer-review process and all decisions are made by the editor(s)? Not terribly ethical to claim peer-review status in that case. Oct. 2012 *I had the same experience - submitted an article and recieved a rejection after about weeks. Because the article was of an unconventional form for the journal - an extended review essay - I wasn't sure that they would send it out to external reviewers, which is certainly their prerogative. But the rejection letter states, "We are sorry to have to say that we cannot provide readers' reports for declined submissions. We have a very small staff at the journal and the large number of submissions makes this impossible; we hope you will understand." What I understand is that this is almost certainly a flat out lie. It is highly unlikely that the essay recieved reader reports in such a short time period. The editors have every right to reject an essay before sending it out for peer review, but it is insulting to be told that an article has been peer reviewed (though we can't show you what they've said!) when it hasn't been. The best I can say is that at least they lied to me quickly. Dec. 2012 ---- ''PMLA'' *Impressively quick responses and thorough feedback. Made it to editorial board, where it was rejected, but very heartened by entire process. *First readers (2 months) disagreed in recommendations, took another 4 months (rather than the projected 4 to 6 weeks) to get third reader's split vote (no). Excellent, expert suggestions, though, and one suggested next-best journals to send to after minor revisions. *Also extremely impressed by the quick response. Received revise and resubmit about two months after submitting original article. Two thorough and helpful readers' reports. *Ditto, though it was ultimately rejected. Beware!-- they seem to give R&Rs quite freely and then reject most of these submissions at their final editorial board meeting. Have spoken to a large number of colleagues who have had the same experience. *Long, frustrating experience here. Like many others, got an R&R with three reader's reports ranging from enthusiastic and helpful to tepid and uninterested. Returned and, 6 months later, rejected with three more reports. Evidently, they'd had to find an extra reader because the recommendations conflicted. Mostly submitted for the experience & reports so I wasn't surprised to be rejected, but I wish they'd have done it with a teeny bit more alacrity. *For those who have submitted to PMLA, was your MLA membership verified before the submission was processed? My membership has lapsed, and I hesitate to renew it simply in order to submit to PMLA. Thanks for any information on this! *Mine was current when I submitted but the reader's reports were worth the membership fee! ---- ''Poetics Today'' * ---- ''Polygraph'' *Respected, but not peer reviewed, graduate-student-run journal operating out of the Duke University Graduate Program in Literature. Generally publishes theme issues once a year. ---- ''Postmodern Culture'' * ---- ''Public Culture'' * ---- ''Renaissance Drama'' * ---- ''Renaissance Quarterly'' * ---- ''Representations'' *submitted 2/2012. still out with readers as of 8/2012. update: Still waiting as of 9/2012. update on 10/12: I wrote yet again to the office and requested to know the status. They told me that a rejection letter had been sent on 7/2012 (when I queried in August 2012 I was told that the ms. was with the second reviewer. Thoughtful comments, but the clerical error was a bit frustrating. ---- ''Social Text'' *18 months from submission to publication. Two reader reports, careful and professional editorial board and staff. *Fast--I received a decision two months from initial submission--but provides no reports or feedback for rejected submissions. (2012) *Very slow for me. Submitted essay 11/2011 and still no response as of 8/2012. ---- ''Speculum'' * ---- ''Studies in the Novel'' *Extremely quick. Received R&R within 3 weeks of submission. Focus on cultural, historical research. *3 anonymous reviews within approx. 4 months; R&R then acceptance less than a month after resubmission (post-publication follow up 8/2012: although I was impressed by the quick turnaround and quick acceptance, I would definitely not work with this editor again; the editorial assistant was excellent and I had no direct contact with the editor; instead I was forced to conform to "directives" to make my language more politically correct, with no regard for what I was actually trying to say or indeed for the many ways of reading the terms I was using). *Friendly, helpful editor and quick review process. Received R&R in April 2011 with helpful and to-the-point reports; resubmitted May 2011; accepted July 2011 and published in September. Well regarded journal and an efficient, professional experience on all fronts. *Unlike the entries above, mine was an extremely hostile experience. The reviewer report was unhelpful and highly antagonistic. He/she simply refused to accept that my re-framing of a classic critical framework under a different light, and yet he/she offered no reasons whatsoever to back his/her position. The journal is very "old school." If your work is minimally critical of established critical trends, I recommend not to submit here. *Very dismissive response from the editor who did not send my article out for peer review despite my field being completely different from hers. Her criticisms were completely uninformed. I submitted the article to a much better journal, who subjected it to peer review in my field, and it was quickly accepted and published *Very quick, like literally one week for a rejection. Unhelpful, unkind, dismissive reader's report. Agree with previous poster that it seemed antagonistic to even very mild criticism of established trends. Article had much better reception elsewhere. ---- ''SubStance'' * ---- ''Telos'' * ---- ''Texas Studies in Literature and Language'' *4 months, 1 reader report. Reasonably positive comments with specific requests for revision, but straight rejection by editor. *4 months, two readers. Both recommended publish. The editor rejected it. Weird. ---- ''Textual Cultures'' *Good place for work of a materialist, book-historical, and textual studies inclination. Always looking for submissions. Editor is extremely helpful and quick on email, and the process is relatively painless (in my recent experience, from submission to publication in six months, with outside reports and good revision suggestions). ---- ''Textual Practice'' *Publishes a diverse range of critical theory articles - some of them very good - but not had any luck there myself. Two outright rejections - within 6 months and 9 months respectively - though puzzlingly with the kind of reviewer comments you normally expect to see accompanying a revise & resubmit or conditional acceptance decision, and on material I have had no trouble publishing (following rejection from TP) in journals of comparable standing. They don't give full copies of reader reports so maybe they only share the less derogatory comments. Either way, from my (possibly atypical) experience, it seems they don't have a lot of time to spend working with authors on revisions, so make sure your submission is print-ready if you try here. *I published here at the time when the editorship last changed over. Got what I understood to be a rejection (with constructive readers' comments), but then got an email after the editor change asking why I hadn't come back with corrections. Time from initial submission to publication was maybe 14 months, but I only did minor corrections. ---- ''Thesis Eleven'' * ---- ''Twentieth-Century Literature'' *Very, very slow. They kept my manuscript for 12 months to reject it at the end. Correspondance was not fluent and I was not given information about the status if the paper. I don't recommend submitting here if you are in a hurry to publish. *Very slow; I'd forgotten the piece was under submission. Reader reports were thorough, but recommendation of peer review was different to decision of editor (editor rejected; reader reports appeared mostly favourable and recommended revisions). ---- ''Viator'' * ---- ''Yearbook of Comparative Literature'' *no response for a query to the editor at yearbook@indiana.edu (9/2012). Does anyone know the best way to reach them? *Not sure of a better contact, but the journal is still active (I know because it's edited through my department at IU). If all else fails, email complit@indiana.edu and ask them who is currently editing YCL. There is often transition at the beginning of a year. ----